So, the old design is back. I messed with that damn banner for ages and ages, and could NOT get it to do what I wanted to do, and I DREAMED about it Saturday night, so then I said “Self, it’s either the banner looking good OR the threaded comments, decide now and shut up!” and so I decided the banner’s going to look good (please tell me y’all can see all of it now!) and the threaded comments have gone away.
I thought those threaded comments were pretty freakin’ cool. Ah well. I guess we’ll just have to muddle through – TOGETHER WE CAN PERSEVERE!
We had a pretty quiet and boring weekend. It rained quite a bit on Saturday, and there wasn’t much Fred could do outside anyway because it was still wet and soggy from the night before, so we hung around the house, moaned about how bored we were, and ended up taking a couple of naps, one around 11 and the other around 3.
Fred told me that he’d spotted something interesting in the ditch that, basically, divides the front part of our property from the back forty. So I grabbed the camera, and we went out to see if we could spot what he’d seen. We did, briefly…
The ditch. To the right is the front part of our property, to the left the back forty.
Crawdads! Unfortunately there were only one or two of them and they weren’t anywhere near eatin’ size, or I would have happily made some jambalaya for dinner. Crawdads, for those of you who haven’t seen them before (and can’t tell from my pictures) look like little bitty lobsters.
Pollywog!
“Whatcha doin’ out there, and where’s my snack?”
We decided we were in the mood for BBQ at lunchtime, so we went out and got some.
The sign at the BBQ place cracked us both up, and Fred threatened to ask if they could give us some BBQ that was cooked NOT to USDA specs.
We hung around the house all afternoon moaning about how bored we were, took a nap, and then I made meatballs so that we could have meatball subs for dinner. We’d been planning to use the rolls I made last weekend, but when Fred opened the bag to get a roll, he announced that they had started to mold. I need to remember to store my homemade bread in the refrigerator, damnit, ’cause homemade bread doesn’t last nearly as long as the stuff you buy in the stores due to the lack of preservatives.
Luckily, we had hamburger buns left over from our package of BBQ, so we used those. We talked about making meatball subs with spaghetti sauce, but in the end I just cut a couple of meatballs in half, put them on the hamburger bun bottom, put a thin slice of horseradish cheddar on top of that, and it was perfection.
Usually when we’re coming up on a weekend, I look through the always-growing pile of recipes I’ve printed out and pick something or a couple of somethings to bake. I rarely let Fred have any input on what I’m making, but last Thursday I was feeling uninspired and not like I wanted to look through my recipes, so I asked if he had any requests. He’s been having a real hankering for lemon lately, so he asked for maybe a lemon cake or perhaps some kind of lemon pie.
I googled around and came up with a recipe for lemon cake and one for lemon squares (with a graham cracker crust), and in the end I made the lemon squares and am saving the lemon cake recipe for the future.
The lemon squares were FABULOUS. They were a huge hit with Fred, and I liked them quite a bit. My only mistake was in over-baking them by a few minutes, so they were a little chewy. Next time I make them, I’ll start checking them earlier so they won’t get overbaked.
Sunday morning, I slept in ’til 7 (SLACKER), then accompanied Fred on his errands to Lowe’s and Tractor Supply. When we got home, Fred pulled into the driveway, and I looked over to my right and said “Oh my holy Jesus god in heaven!”
“What?” Fred said, wide-eyed.
“There’s an ARMADILLO!” I said.
“Where??” he said.
“Right there! It’s dead!”
There it was, large as life, laying there ON IT’S BACK, dead as a doornail.
We got out of the truck and approached it. Fred poked it to make sure it was dead, but since it had organs visible we were pretty confident that it was.
“Joe Bob!” I yelled at Joe Bob, who was sitting on the side stoop smiling the way he always does. “Did you kill the armadillo?!”
Joe Bob just kept smiling.
Fred came to the conclusion that the armadillo had been dead for a few days and we decided that perhaps a dog had dragged it onto the property (while we were gone) before George and Gracie’s barking scared it off.
“You think I should put it in a freezer bag and stick it in the freezer ’til trash day?” Fred asked. Last summer something killed an armadillo just over the church property line, and the guy who mows the church property was kind enough to mow around it, so for half the summer we were treated to the particularly nasty stank of rotting armadillo. In the hottest heat of an Alabama summer, the smell of that rotting armadillo was so thick you could taste it. (In retrospect, I think I should have insisted that Fred sneak over there and bury the goddamn thing.)
Gah.
Fred ended up dragging it to the very back of the back forty and tossing it into the undergrowth back there. Hopefully something will come along and eat it – but at least if it starts rotting, it’ll be far enough away from the house that I won’t have to smell it every time I leave the house.
And, yeah. I took a picture, but I’m not sharing it ’cause it’s gross. It’s a DEAD ARMADILLO, and it’s got internal organs showing, and it’s gross. Trust me, you don’t need to see that and I’m not sure why I took the picture anyway.
The last thing Fred said before he dragged the damn thing off to the back forty, despite the fact that we’ve probably seen 10 dead armadillos by the side of the road in the last month or so, was “I didn’t think armadillos came this far north!”
Sunday afternoon Miss Beulah jumped up on my desk. She brought a bit of a stank with her, so I lifted up her tail to check her nether regions (she gets no respect) and said “Whew! Did you just poop?”
And Fred said, sounding utterly offended, “Me?!”
HA.
Beulah has finally, FINALLY hit two pounds. I’ll be calling in a little while to make her an appointment to be spayed later this week. And then, assuming there’s space at the pet store, she and Bessie will be going off to be adopted!
Those of you who mentioned that Beulah’s got big ears and maybe she’ll end up being a big cat after all – who knows? Sugarbutt was the runt of his litter, and you can’t by any stretch of the imagination call him a little cat.
And those of you who wanted to know what Fred thinks of Beulah now that she’s grown up a bit? He still says she’s ugly. But I’m pretty sure he’s only saying it because he knows it’s RUDE and OFFENSIVE. She’s clearly grown into a gorgeous little thing, and I’ll be surprised if I even get her into the cage at the pet store before there’s a riot of people wanting to adopt her.
Doesn’t she look evil?
“I shall take over the worrrrrrrrrrrrld!”
Tellin’ secrets.
Bath time!
Kinda looks like she’s pouting and he’s asking her what’s wrong, doesn’t it?
Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Ten.
2006: I walked over to them and threw Cheerios at them, and they looked at me as if I were mentally disturbed.
2005: Which he proved by dancing lightly about the room once I’d said we should just stay home.
2004: He asked questions, he really listened to the answers, and he was just really a nice guy.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: She’s obviously picked up her mother’s bad attitude.
2000: My day in pictures.
I thought Fred was some kind of a computer geek, can’t he help you get your site looking like you want? I’m gonna miss Beulah!
Oh, and I can see the banner now, THANKS!
“And, yeah. I took a picture, but I’m not sharing it ’cause it’s gross.”
How did you know that I was thinking “Where’s the picture?” You could always just put up a link to it, so that only those of us who like gross things would have to look at it.
I really hate to see the little runt go. Can you put something on her adoption sheet to ensure that she isn’t an only kitty? She sure seems to need another kitty around. At least she doesn’t seem to be too picky. I would hate to think of her being lonely.
Yay! You brought the yellow back. The way the comments were threaded was neat though. I reckon I shouldn’t tell you that the words about what you found in the ditch are mostly hidden behind the picture. Could be my screwy browser.
Nevermind on the picture covering up the writing. When it refreshed to show the comments the page looked right. Carry on!
Heh. Leaving work last Tuesday, I swerved to avoid the freshly dead carcass of a GIANT armadillo on Rideout Road. Leaving work Saturday afternoon, there was STILL meat all over the road along with the greasy skid marks, even though there are plenty of scavengers to scarf down roadkill on the half-shell. I hope Fred didn’t *hide* that armadillo…
Thank you for not posting the dead armadillo picture. And I will make a note to stay away from any of Fred’s upcoming journal entries.
I can’t recall if someone said this before but Beulah’s giant ears remind me of a bat. A cute little bat girl-the bat man theme is playing in my head now. I would probably hum it to her and use her little paws to do the bat man dance-gently ofcourse. She would probably bite me. It’s great that they can’t talk and tell us how wierd we are sometimes,no? Hubby went camping w/friends to a bluegrass festival this weekend. No the princess does not sleep in tents and use porta potties if not an emergency. I grew up using outhouses(grandparents had an old one outside and our summer house had one) they are not as gross. I took Ollie on a 35 minute car ride to meet my parents. He cried the whole way-I kept turning up the music to drown him out. My parents unaltered bichon kept trying to hump poor Ollie. Other than that it was good. He cried on the way home but a bit less-he was tired I guess.
I’m glad you didn’t post the ugly dead thing picture. I do have a macabre death fascination sometimes-look at
post mortem photos on flickr, love cememteries etc. but hate open caskets in REAL life. Odd -but definetly a Stephan KIng/Vampire Lestat/True Blood kind of girl. I read a review for a book comming out June 2nd called The Whole Death Catalog-looks really cool. I want it.
I would trade the banner for the threaded comments anyday but that is not a request just an opinion.
Christine: He probably could, but I ask him to help me with so much web page-related stuff that I don’t want to wear out his willingness to help me. 🙂
M.R: Yeah, if I had shared it, it would have been a link – but I accidentally deleted it, so now dead armadillo pictures for youuuuu! 🙂
Kristina: Oh, definitely I’ll make sure to put on her cage card that she needs to have another cat around – and it would be awesome if someone adopted her and Bessie together!
Jean: I just came back from dropped Beulah off at the vet, and I’m pretty sure I passed at least 5 dead armadillos on the side of 65. There appears to be an abundance of armadillo meat – it’s not the delicacy it used to be for the area scavengers, I guess.
If you want a great lemon dessert recipe, try this:
http://www.landolakes.com/mealIdeas/ViewRecipe.cfm?RecipeID=4475B
I make them every year at christmas and they are everyones favorite!
I was so sure you would put ‘dog’ under the picture of George/Gracie. So I spent yesterday putting in annuals after pulling weeds. Just as I was about 75% done and had put 50 impatiens and begonias into the ground Dave sez to me ” Hey , there is a frost warning tonight” I of course went batshit because I could have waited one more day and brought the plants inside. But nooooo. It did not look bad outside this morning but time will tell. It had better warm it’s furry butt up outside or they will be holding the Indy 500 sled race instead of car race this weekend. It gets mighty chilly up in the stands at the track on those cool days.
I saw armadillos in Missouri a couple of weeks ago. Dave said the same thing as Fred…’I did not think they came up that far north.”
Question for the Friday comment-answering extravaganza:
I found a kitten who the vet says is about five weeks old. I’ve never had a cat that young. After I fed her, I showed her the litterbox ( I have another cat) and she sniffed around, climbed out, and immediately disappeared into one of the many hidey holes that are in my basement, which is partially finished and totally cluttered. After several hours, we found her and were able to grab her, and I brought her upstairs where she snuggled and purred and played and slept and seemed quite friendly. After she ate again, I brought her down to the litterbox again, and she pulled the disappearing kitty act again. That was last night, and she hasn’t come out since, excpet once to wail for food, but she darted behind the wall where we couldn’t get her. There is food down there, but I’m not sure if at 5 weeks old she’ll know to come out and get it. Can a kitten that age be expected to be able to negotiate a flight of stairs to get to her food and litterbox, or, when I catch her again, should I put her in some kind of cage until she’s older. I want to inculcate good litter box habits early, and all the other kittens i’ve ever had got it if you plopped them in the box right after feeding them, but they were all at least 8 weeks. Do you think I should contineu to give her the run of the house, or is she too little for that?
OMG the “poop” thing killed me! pepsi came shooting out my nose.
I did just about the same thing this weekend. My husband was asking our poodle if he needed to go potty, and I was in the kitchen, and answered “I just went damnit”
Rose –
So you don’t have to wait ’til Friday for an answer: My recommendation would be to confine the kitten to one or two rooms if it’s possible, or if it’s not, then by all means put her in a cage when you’re not actively playing with or cuddling her. I think she’s probably still a little young to remember where everything’s located – when we get fosters that young, they stay in one room (well, a room and a walk-in closet) for the first couple of weeks, then they gradually get more room to roam. When I got Beulah & Bessie and their brothers, they were about seven weeks old and not really *quite* to the point where they were using the litter box all the time. I think you’re going to want to give your baby a few weeks of having the litter box and food right by her before you give her the run of the house.
I hope that helps, and let me know if you have any questions!
So sad that Beulah is leaving! Such a cute little thing, she is! The very first cat I adopted when I moved out on my own (over 11 years ago now)was a 6 week old kitten with HUGE ears. She’s now a tiny (6 pounds at the most) cat with HUGE ears. Seriously, she never got big, but those ears just stayed on the large side! We lost our 12 year old Persian (adopted as a retired showcat) in December and our 19 year old Maine Coon (adopted as a to be euthanized “senior”) in early May. I’m definitely not ready to see my “first” kitty go!
You’ve probably seen this but if not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_udqEp_YR4&feature=player_embedded
Hee!
First time commenting, long time reader. DON’T store your homemade bread in the fridge. It dries out faster and gets stale (hard) faster. You’re better off storing it at room temp and using it in 3-4 days or freezing it and taking it out as you need it. I know PITA. You can add lemon juice, bottled it fine, to the dough when you make it (you won’t taste it at all) and that will make the bread stay fresh a couple days longer. Use 2 tsp. per loaf or 1Tbs. for a double loaf batch.
send me the picture.